


A psalm at journey's end

by Redrocketeer



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Afterlife fic, Boys coming home, Camping forever, Gen, Happy Ending, Quite spoilery for end of game, Roadtrips forever
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-19
Updated: 2017-02-19
Packaged: 2018-09-25 13:39:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9823010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Redrocketeer/pseuds/Redrocketeer
Summary: After it's over, one by one, the heroes come home.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Because the end of the game left me a sobbing mess I had to add a little coda.

Gladio breathed in slowly through his nose in brief investigation. Cinnamon and nutmeg, he identified. They surprised him. He knew he should be surprised. Weren’t there frightened screams? Wasn’t there tearing metal? Popping glass? Hadn’t there been a pressure in his hand? Nose filled with the tang of metal, tongue burnt by copper and iron only a moment ago?

After all those years of darkness, such a foolish way to go out.

Go out...

“You should say something.” A warm female voice from somewhere to his right, not close. He knew that voice but its owner was gone. Long gone. Maybe he’d imagined it. It didn’t seem to be talking to him anyway. Gladio determined he’d open his eyes in a moment and look soon as he mustered up the energy. He couldn’t remember his eyelids ever being so heavy even after running through three nights in a row.

The chair he sat in felt real, solid, heavy. His head rested on one of the wings of its high back, a crackling fire warmed his knees. He felt pleasantly drowsy and deliciously comfortable. He remembered pain, sharp and recent, but nothing hurt now. Slowly Gladio opened his eyes, blinking the room into focus. He looked out on a cosy mantle flanked by pretty vases. A thick rug cushioned his feet. It was a room he hadn’t seen for decades, it couldn’t exist any more, but every detail came flooding back as if he’d never left it.

“Ignis?” Gladio ran a hand through his greying hair. He wasn’t old, yet, but he was heading there. His strength took more and more work to maintain but he put in that work because he was needed and he needed the work. He placed his hands on the arms of the chair, ready to push himself to his feet. 

“He’s not here yet,” said an unmistakable voice coloured by a smile. 

No, it _couldn’t_ be!

But he remembered the calamity, rain, someone desperate calling his name. He gathered his limbs and rose to his feet, turning to face his welcoming committee. 

“Didn’t make it, did I,” Gladio said pragmatically. Despite the unhappy sentiment he couldn’t keep the smile from his face as he faced the pair.  
“No,” Noctis shrugged. “And yes.” The last king of Lucis looked his Shield up and down. Gladio shifted his feet.  
“You’re making me feel old, kid.” He took a step closer to a gently smiling Noctis.  
“You _are_ old,” Noctis grinned in a less-that-regal fashion. He looked like a kid, to Gladio, then the Shield realised that he _was_ a kid. In that moment ten years fell away and the prince at 20 stood before him. “But we can fix that.”

Luna smiled as she moved towards Gladio. He started at her. He couldn’t recall ever seeing a girl as beautiful, as serene. She was like starlight come to life, he thought as he watched her move. He was no poet but he figured she had made poets of a lot of men in her short time on Eos, without ever once meaning to.

“It’s good to meet you, Gladio. Noctis has told me a lot about you,” Luna said as she took a hold of Gladio’s wrist. He felt a warmth spread through his spirit, that part of him that formed his physical presence shifted, hair became darker, skin became tighter, he rose to his full height. His hands went to his face and it reminded him of something. He tensed and looked behind himself.

“Ignis! Prompto! Iris… they’re back there.”  
“Yeah,” Noctis said, slowly moving closer to his friend. He understood Gladio’s distress at that reality, especially as their grief had just been doubled. “But whatever happens now… we’ll see ‘em.”  
“Yeah,” Gladio said, looking at a little at a loss. Noctis spared a brief smile for Luna before closing the distance between himself and his dear friend. “Welcome home, Gladio. You’re going to love it here,” he said sincerely, with certainty, arms wrapping around the one who had always fought to keep him safe. Gladio allowed the embrace, resting a brief hand on his friend’s back, trying hard not to reject the situation as impossible. He so wanted it to be real. Noctis, by contrast, moved with calm ease. He knew the truth.

With Noctis beyond harm it was time for his Shield to rest.

“Oh! Almost forgot,” Noctis said, stepping back and pulling something from his pocket. “This is for you.” A photograph, worn around the edges. Gladio added his own fingerprints to the many already there and chuckled softly. He reached into the inner pocket of his leather vest. “Already got one.” Gladio’s smile slipped a little as he looked into the smiling faces of absent friends. “Prompto gave ‘em to us after…after the sun came up.” Even Ignis, out of sentiment more than anything, Gladio figured. Something he’d appreciated at the time about the golden-haired young man. Ignis had kept it, too.

Noctis smiled a content smile. “We’ll find a safe place for it.”

“Thanks,” Gladio breathed, a catch in his voice that drew Luna to his side. Noctis took up position on the other. “Let’s show you around. I know just where to start.” 

***

“Turn the lights down. He won't be used to it.”

Ignis was laying on a bed, that much he was sure of. Neatly made, the covers smooth beneath him, they smelled freshly pressed yet it was an unfamiliar bed. His ears were sharp as any man’s and he swore he heard voices but he was sure he’d been alone. Hadn’t there been falling? Too far. Much too far, tumbling into the dark. It should have hurt. Perhaps it would start hurting soon. Any moment. 

“He hasn’t opened his eyes.”

That voice! Rough but kind, familiar like an old shoe, like his own hand.

A lighter voice. “Ignis, you should open your eyes.” _Oh, well. Now it can’t be real._

“I would, Majesty, but I’m delirious,” Ignis said. “I seem to have imagined you,” he added as his heart thudded in his chest and his ears strained, feeding him every clue he could find.  
There was a chuckle, very real, very close. He felt something move to his right, press down on the bed, elbows making dimples in the smooth sheets.  
“Gods I’ve missed you, Iggy,” the rough voice said again. “Now for the Six’s sake open your eyes before I find a giant toad to lick them open for you.”

“Eye and don’t be disgusting, Gladi- _oh._ ” Eyes, amber, looked back at him from a face that had been worn in but was still, without question, the face of his dear friend, his hands having reminded him of what his eyes might forget. Ignis blinked and started. He blinked too much, even in the low light, his senses close to overcome but he didn’t want to hold back. “You have a new scar,” he said softly because if he didn’t focus on the detail he was afraid his brain would simply short-circuit.

“Should I just leave you two alone or…” The voice was warm, though, full of the smile that played on the speaker’s lips. Ignis turned towards it, his face lighting up, his eyes whole and bright. “Noct!” he cried, voice heavy with recognition, his usual reservation put aside as he almost fell off the bed in his scramble to get to his feet. Ignis was thrown by the warm laughter from his king as Noctis showed him the face of the man he had become. A face Ignis had never had the chance to see. Ignis hesitated. Was it just a dream? He’d had so many along these lines, the seeing, the seeing his King, the seeing his Gladio. Surely it was just another?

Where Ignis stopped, Noctis took over, wrapping his arms around the narrow frame of his oldest friend. “It’s real,” Noctis said, just for Ignis to hear. “You’ve come home.” 

Ignis nodded after a moment, feeling the truth of place wrap itself around him just as Gladio’s arms wrapped around the pair of them. When Ignis caught Gladio’s face from the corner of his eye he noticed that the large man had shifted to his younger form. “A neat trick,” Ignis said, a little jealous.  
“I can teach you how,” Gladio said, slipping an arm around Ignis’ shoulders. Ignis let him. “You should walk with us. His Majesty wants to show you around. I wanted to take you to my favourite bar but he wants to show you the garden.”

“Hey, the garden’s beautiful. He’ll love it.”

There was a time when their bickering annoyed him, and maybe there would be again, but right now he was painfully grateful to hear it again.

They moved off, Noctis close, Gladio closer, a single unit. Ignis’ eyes swivelled in every direction, drinking in every form, every colour, and two rumpled photographs in new, white frames. He caught sight of a golden-haired boy in the images and smiled. “Please tell me there are chocobos here,” he said as they passed under an arch of roses so red Ignis had to reach out to touch them.

***  
“Hers is definitely bigger.”  
“No way!”  
“Hers is always bigger. You need to face facts, Noctis. Luna is the fisher of the family.”  
“What do you mean, the...where did she go?”  
“Probably to get a measuring tape, not that she’ll need one.”  
“Hey, Gladio, you should respool that line. It’s wearing kind of thin, isn’t it?”  
“Shove off, Your Majesty.”  
“They may not be as big as Lady Lunafreya’s but I have amassed a nice collection.”  
“Good for you, Iggy.”

Luna came back with a smile, walking slowly along the pier. It was gentle and warm and aimed squarely at Noctis. She only stopped when her hand came to rest on his wrist. Her eyes crinkled as they met his. “He’s here,” she said softly.

***  
Prompto was laid out on his back, on the grass, his eyes closed, his thin arms closed around a worn photo album. It was by that that Noctis knew his friend, alone among them, had passed quietly, in his bed.  
The king knelt on the thick lawn, hand reaching out to touch the white hair, the furrowed brow.  
“You’ve been waiting a long time,” he said, touching the soft skin of Prompto’s sunken cheek. There was little left on that compact frame. Noctis had never seen his friend fade away and was grateful for it even as he was sad he wasn’t there to ease his way.

He didn’t rush Prompto, just waited for his eyes to open, pale but still that familiar blue. They blinked at the leaf-covered canopy. Noctis watched him find his focus, holding still till those eyes found him. Animated by stunned recognition that worn face transformed. Young man’s eyes in an old man’s face locked onto their long lost king.

“Noct!” he breathed, sitting quickly, all his fatigue behind him. “You’re so-”  
“Yeah, well, you’re late but I won’t hold it against you.” He reached out to ruffle Prompto’s hair as if he was a kid. As if they both were. As if war hadn’t made them all grow up fast, whether they liked it or not.

“Is this… am I dead too?”

“You could say that. Your time on Eos is over. You’re not.” A crooked smile shaped Noctis’ 20-year-old face. He placed a hand over the old, familiar, album. “I hope this isn’t full,” he said.  
Prompto cocked his head, shaking it gently. “I don’t really know what you mean, Noct. What is this place?” Prompto looked around him, taking in the subtle marble columns and tastefully arranged plants curling around each other like they’d co-existed for centuries “Why are we in a garden?”

“It’s not just a garden. Come and see.” Noctis reached out a hand to Prompto. The hand that Prompto raised shifted as it passed before his eyes, back in time, to match his king. Prompto stared at it. “Whoa! How did you do that?”  
“Things are just… kind of flexible here,” Noctis shrugged. “In a good way.” He aimed to be reassuring but concern settled back on Prompto’s features.  
Noctis watched Prompto looked him up down. “Are you okay?” Prompto asked and Noctis had to chuckle. All the pain and the years Prompto had struggled on alone and his first concern had been for his friend, of course. “I’m just great, now,” he said, wrapping an arm around Prompto, encouraging his best friend to walk with him. “Never been better.”

***

“Is this… Galdin Quay?”  
Prompto looked up to the vaulted sky. It seemed endless as it had the first time he’d seen it, three lifetimes ago. Like all the blue in the world had been captured in that one place just for them. 

“It’s all here,” Noctis said, waving his hand as if he were showing his friend around his apartment. “All of it,” as he turned Prompto to face the pier and three figures gathered there, standing among buckets of fish and lines in the water, sunlight bouncing off droplets as they invited more of the fishlife in.  
The blond dropped his album as his fingers went numb. It hardly mattered as he ran across the sand and Noctis ran after him. What need of memories did he have when the real thing stood before him, with open arms?

***  
Ignis slid the red cooler into the trunk of the Regalia next to the four-man tent. They were replicas, unused. They’d been waiting for the last member to come and call them into use.  
Prompt snapped a candid photo of Luna and she stuck out her tongue for another. “I want to see them all when you get back,” she said. “And we get back.” She kissed his cheek and jogged over to the shimmering blue convertible where Cindy, Aranea and Iris waited. Three of them were dressed casually, Aranea looked sharp enough to impale a Malboro on her lapels, her carefully pointy expression matched. Smoke rose from the tyres as Cindy swung it around the carpark, giving the boys a final farewell as they took to the road, laughter bubbling through the crisp morning air.

“Hey, Iggy, it’s a long drive. Better start with one of these.” A slick can slid into his hand and Ignis sipped it neatly.  
“Thank you, Gladio,” he said warmly, sounding relaxed. He spared a final glance out to sea as if locking the image in his mind. No one blamed him.  
“We’ll be back,” Noctis said confidently.  
“Yeah, we have to. I’ve got reservations,” Gladio grinned and tapped Ignis’ shoulder. “Let’s go. Can’t have the girls beating us to Lestallum.”  
“The way Cindy was driving I think it’s almost guaranteed,” Ignis said dryly. “My skills are a little more... rusty.”  
He gripped the wheel firmly, kicking the engine to life.

“It’s just like riding a bike.”  
“I never learned to ride a bike.”  
“Maybe I should have gone with the girls…”  
“We’ll be fine. Hey Noct, you got the map?”  
“Yeah, just up the hill and to the right, on for 4.6 miles.”  
“Got that Iggy? Let’s go. No hurry.”  
“Indeed.”

“Hey, hey! Why don’t we take a group picture over there!”


End file.
